Well, I was wondering if anyone could help me with a small problem I, and my friend, have when we weight a skin. When we weight the model and export it as an .XSI and then to a .glm and test it out, it all works perfectly except for one slight issue...

When you swing your lightsaber (most noticeable in Red/Strong Stance) you can see the the shoulders are moving into the torso during the swing, and we have been trying to figure out how to fix it, but have yet to get it working properly. Screenshot to show what I mean. Click

So I was wondering if anyone knew of a way to fix this issue? I've gone to places like http://www3.sympatico.ca/psykopat/ but when I look at the tutorials there, it doesn't seem to cover the parts that I'm needing to fix. I looked over Tim Appleby's tutorial, but he didn't at all tell you HOW to model it, because going based on the images he placed, I would weight apart to the clavical.. but when I tried that, it only made my issue worse.

When I looked over that "Skin Modifier" tutorial, it didn't at all touch the area I'm having an issue with. All it went over was the leg up to the knee, and the arm right at the humerus bone, but that part is just fine for me... it's where the shoulder goes into the torso that I'm having an issue with..

If it will make it any easier, just ask me to post an image of where I got the parts weighted to, as that may help. Right now it's all weighted to the thoracic, pretty much...

Psyk0Sith

05-30-2010 12:15 PM

The issue cant be solved with tutorials, since we dont always have the same topology or bulk in the clothes.

JA animations werent designed to deform this type of cloth (or at least does a poor job at it). What you need to do is weight the upper part of the cloth to follow the upper arm bone, or at least get something in-between so it doesnt look odd in other movements.

Illrian

05-30-2010 01:30 PM

Is there a bone you would personally recommend to put these at? Here is an image of how I have it weight at the moment.

The part that is incircled by black is the parts of the Shoulder that is weighted to the thoracic. Same as what you see the dots are weight to.

Inyri

05-30-2010 01:52 PM

That head is Bao'Dur from KotOR2, isn't it?

As for a particular bone, as he said try the upper arm. You might also consider the clavicles. Think of which bones in your body move when you move your arm that way.

Illrian

05-30-2010 03:59 PM

It is not quite Bao'Dur, but of the Zabrak species. Slightly different, I can't tell you where exactly my friend got it from though.

As far as the clavical bone goes... I have tried doing that, and while it worked on connecting that part, I then had an issue of right below the shoulder, the torso went into itself in a weird manner...

The_Corto

07-09-2010 10:02 AM

Your main problem with that model is that the shoulders are far broader than they should. There is no way you can try to fix that and be comfortable with the results. What you should do is modify your model's topology so when both arms go together in front of the chest they don't overlap so drastically with it. So in short, give the model a narrower shoulder span and it should deform very nicely. You are still going to get some slight overlapping, but it happens with all skeletal animation systems, even today. That's why shape animations where created for.